Staples Plus Program Review

Someone from Staples called me a while back about the Staples Plus program.  One of the benefits is a $2 rewards on ink cartridges (with minimum purchase of ink) which she touted.  But, since I use Epson Ecotank printers where you just pour in bottles of ink, I don’t have ink cartridges.  Also, the ink lasts so long that I rarely need to buy it, so another benefit of 10% back on ink isn’t much use to me either.  By the way, if you don’t have an Ecotank printer, you should look into it.

I never really thought any more about the Staples Plus program until I was browsing Staples for a shelving unit recently.  I added a few other items to my cart and underneath these items, it showed that I could have a significant discount if I became a Staples Plus member.  So I decided to join.

Here are screenshots that I took just minutes before becoming a Staples Plus member.

This is after I became a Staples Plus member.  I chose the same 24 pack of Diet Coke as one of my 5 select items to save on.

I don’t see the same savings that they were promising, do you?  Walmart sells a 24-pack of Diet Coke for just under $7 – why in the world would I pay this inflated price AND pay a membership fee to be able to pay this price?  This is ludicrous!

Same with the Austin Crackers!  The savings they were promoting is shown in the picture with the Diet Coke above … and the actual saving turned out to be much less! (3rd item from the left in picture below)

You can get TWO 27-packs of Austin Crackers (9 more packs than the 45-pack at Staples) on Walmart’s website for just under $12.  Again, no real savings … but it’s not only that, it’s misrepresenting the savings.  That is what I am mostly angry about … wasting my time trying to find deals that they said existed, but really did not.  This to me is typical “bait and switch”.  I have already canceled my membership, as I’m not playing around with this mess.

And this is the reason that I gave when prompted during the cancellation process:

This membership is completely bull! When I was shopping on your site, it showed me amounts that members would save … when I joined, the amounts were much different. Much less … and you can get most of this stuff from Amazon or Walmart for the same price as your “paid membership”. Big waste of money … huge waste of money.

Anyway, I’d love to hear your experience with Staples Plus.  With all of that said, and even though I am highly annoyed with Staples right now, they do have good coupons if you sign up for their emails.  I would not, however, recommend the Staples Plus program.

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